2017 Gajendra Circle Conference

The Bay Area’s IITMAANA Chapter had its annual professional conference on Saturday, April 8, at the offices of ServiceNow in Santa Clara, CA. This year’s conference was attended by over 100 people from a variety of backgrounds and levels of experience.

Our Keynote speaker was Mark Fulgham, a prominent figure in the Silicon Valley, and President of NTT Data Inc. While his decades of experience in the IT industry ensured that he has “seen it all”, he was most willing to share his viewpoints on the theme of the conference and other topics. Ashok Santhanam was the host for the Keynote Fireside.

The conference theme was “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Jobs”, but our diverse panels addressed a wide ranges of professional and social topics, catering to the interests of the Alumni community. The panels were informative and engaging, with panelists expressing their views on the topic, while often challenging others with quips and repartees to get a point across.

While most of the panelists were Alumni from IIT Madras, true to the IITMAANA spirit of building the Alumni Community we did dip into our talented pool of IITM Alumni spouses & progeny, Alumni from other IITs, and even experts with no affiliation to the IIT brand. We recognize these panelists for their contributions to the success of the event:

Our thanks also go to an amazing pool of volunteers for their help on the day of the conference, and to our Event Sponsor, ServiceNow, for the use of their beautiful facility that gave us the professional setting needed for the event.

Here is a collection of event photos and these are the video recordings of the various panels:

Overall, this was another feather in the cap for Bay Area’s IITMAANA chapter that, over the past 2 years, has continued to raise the bar in organizing a diverse collection of professional and social events to benefit the IITM Alumni community.